Abraham Lincoln–What Would Rick Warren Say?

On January 20, Barack Obama will be sworn into office on Abraham Lincoln’s bible, an act fraught with much symbolism.  There’s more to Lincoln than "Civil War, freed the slaves, assassinated by John Wilkes Booth during Our American Cousin," stuff even deeper than the weird Lincoln-Kennedy coincidence poster (Oh, you remember that one: Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, etc.)

So in honor of the Presidents from Illinois, I’ll be randomly posting about Honest Abe until the inauguration.

The following quotes are from letters by William Herndon collected as Abraham Lincoln’s Religious Views in Religious Views Of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner. William Herndon was Lincoln’s longtime friend, law partner and biographer. The whole text can be read by clicking the link provided.

From what I know of Mr. Lincoln, and from what I have heard and verily believe, I can say, first, that he did not believe in special creation, his idea being that all creation was an evolution under law; secondly, that he did not believe that the Bible was a special revelation from God, as the Christian world contends; thirdly, he did not believe in miracles as understood by Christians; fourthly, he believed in universal inspiration and miracles under law; fifthly, he did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God, as the Christian church contends; sixthly, he believed that all things, both matter and mind, were governed by laws, universal, absolute and eternal. All his speeches and remarks in Washington conclusively prove this. Law was to Lincoln everything, and special interferences, shams and delusions.

While Lincoln frequently, in a conventional way, appeals to God, he never appeals to Christ nor mentions him. I know that he at first maintained that Jesus was a bastard, and later that he was the son of Joseph and not of God.

And from Herndon’s biography, The Life of Lincoln:

Lincoln was not a Christian in any sense other than that he lived a good life and was a noble man. If a good life constitutes one a Christian, then Mill and a million other men who repudiated and denied Christianity were Christians, for they lived good and noble lives.

[H/T Dennis diClaudio]